not respecting someone else’s pronouns is fundamentally degrading to the dignity and value of that person. It’s a form of intimidation and bullying. Yes it is transphobic.
You are arguing for forced speech here. Essentially, you believe everyone should be forced to pretend that trans women are women and trans men are men, and labelling any non compliance as intimidation and bullying.
I'd be interested to know whether you think there are any limits to this.
For example, if a rape victim is testifying against her rapist in court and he wishes to be referred to as she/her, is she intimidating and bullying him if she refuses? Or is he intimidating and bullying her by trying to force her to do so? Is the court intimidating and bullying her by forcing her to pretend, at risk of not getting the justice she deserves?
Theres a legitimate debate to be had about eligibility for participation in women’s sport. most of the way that this is debated however, which usually involves attacking and bullying trans people and athletes with DSDs , is violently transphobic.
This is highly disingenuous.
Firstly, the position of trans activists is generally that there is no debate about this, and that even wanting to have such a debate is transphobic. That has led to the International Olympic Committee informing us that we all agree that trans women are women in order to justify its decision to take an Olympic spot away from a young female athlete from a developing country and give it to Laurel Hubbard instead. It also led to female college swimmers being forced to compete against Lia Thomas, sometimes missing out on a medal or the opportunity to compete, and forced to strip naked in the locker rooms in the presence of Lia, a fully intact heterosexual male. They were told they had no right to complain and if they did they would risk being kicked off the team and losing their sports scholarships.
Secondly, I am yet to see an argument in favour of letting trans women compete in women's sports. All we've seen is that they can reduce their testosterone levels to below the male range. They have never been required to get their testosterone levels into the female range, and even if they did this wouldn't reverse the advantages of having gone through male puberty. The only argument for them competing as women is on the basis of their gender identity. But a gender identity is an entirely subjective, unprovable, non physical characteristic which most people don't even have and which is completely irrelevant to sport. Nobody is asking female athletes how they identify or whether they agree that identity is a relevant factor for categorising how people compete in sport.
there’s a legitimate debate to be had about how to organise spaces so everyone feels safe. This also includes respecting the dignity , safety, privacy of trans people. Third spaces for gender critical women is my preferred approach. But for some reason gender criticals don’t go for it despite thinking trans people should be fine in a third space…
Again, I would repeat my comments about the disingenuousness of saying "there's a legitimate debate" when the trans activist line had consistently been "there is no debate".
I agree that everyone should have access to a space where their safety and dignity is respected. But the answer isn't a separate space for "gender critical women". Most women don't identify as gender critical or even know what that means, but the overwhelming majority of them don't want penises in their single sex toilets and changing rooms. We shouldn't be treating women who want this as a minority because that results in either no space being provided for them at all, or a totally inadequate space on the grounds that they are a tiny minority, when they aren't. In the case with the Darlington nurses who are suing the NHS, the trans identifying male colleague who has sexually harassed his female colleagues in the women's changing rooms still has free rein of the women's changing rooms, whereas the women are being forced to get changed in a completely inadequate space. Trans people are the ones who have decided that they cannot possibly share these spaces with other members of their own sex. They are the tiny minority. They are the ones who need to campaign for and be given their own spaces, which should be proportionate to the size of the population that they represent. (This means no taking a changing room or toilet facility away from women, giving it to trans people, and then telling women to get changed in a glorified cupboard, or telling disabled people to share their accessible spaces.
The starting point needs to be the assumption that no women actively want to share toilets and changing rooms with trans women, and they should not be forced to, so an alternative solution should be found for trans people if necessary.